Attempt to stop land transfer fails

A federal district judge has turned down an attempt by the Crow Creek
Sioux Tribe to halt the transfer of land along the Missouri River from
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the state of South Dakota.

The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe had sought a preliminary injunction to
stop the corps from transferring the land to the state.

The judge in Washington, D.C., last week denied that request for the
preliminary injunction, according to Bob Mercer, the press secretary
for Gov. Bill Janklow.

The tribe contended that cultural resources could not be adequately
protected if the land was transferred from the federal government to
state government.

The brief filed by the state said those allegations were wrong, Mercer
said.

An environmental impact statement prepared by the corps found that
the transfer of land would have no significant impact on cultural resources
and, in some instances, they'd be better protected by the state, Mercer
said.

The state has conservation officers, and Janklow has proposed adding
funds in the state's budget for cultural surveys, Mercer said.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe had also challenged the transfer of the land.
The same judge will be considering the Oglala Sioux Tribe's lawsuit,
which is between the corps and tribe.

Oglala sue army corps over land issue

RAPID CITY, S.D. ? Sioux treaties through the 19th century will have
a going over in federal court in Washington, D.C., in a new lawsuit
in the Mitigation Act controversy. The suit filed by the Oglala Sioux
Tribe asks that thousands of acres of land not be transferred to the
state of South Dakota and two other Sioux tribes. The OST seeks to prevent
any transfer of land along the Missouri River that the tribe claims
is part of the 1868 treaty that established the Great Sioux Reservation.
Any transfer of land would be illegal under that treaty, it says. The
tribe also argues that by way of the treaty it owns all of the cultural
items below and above the water level on both sides of the rivers. The
1868 treaty gave the Lakota people the land west of the Missouri River
from the low water mark on the east shore of the Missouri River.

The Oglala Tribe claimed that an 1889 law creating six separate reservations
in the western part of the state did not diminish the boundaries of
the original 1868 treaty. The Oglala complaint asserts that the 1889
law that established the reservations did not contain the signatures
of three-fourths of the males of the Sioux Nation as required. Many
other signatures, those of mixed blood and white people, appeared on
the documents illegally, the complaint states.

The Oglala also note that the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 said that
the U.S. government confiscated the western end of the Great Sioux Reservation
in violation of Article 12 of the 1868 Treaty and the Fifth Amendment.

Therefore the tribe argues that it owns all of the cultural items
along either side of the Missouri River and that the federal government
and U.S. Corps of Engineers, defendants in the case, have not taken
the proper measures to protect those items.

The lands in question are shore properties that lie above the established
flood line of the lakes established by the hydroelectric power dams.
The Corps has the responsibility to transfer surplus land back to the
tribes.

In an attachment to the Water Resource Development Act of 2000, Congress
ordered the Corps to transfer the land to the state and the Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe and the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. This Lower

Brule Sioux, Cheyenne River Sioux and South Dakota Terrestrial Protection
Act was pushed through Congress and signed by President Clinton without
proper consultation with the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the lawsuit claims.

The Oglala ask temporary and permanent injunction against transfer
of the land to the state and the two mentioned tribes. This lawsuit
goes further than one filed by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe which only
mentions the state. The Oglala lawsuit puts more emphasis on the treaties,
said Mario Gonzales, Oglala tribal attorney.

The Crow Creek lawsuit succeeded in stopping the land transfer set
for Jan. 1. The hand over was rescheduled for Feb. 8. A hearing will
be held on Feb. 1 in federal court, said Peter Capposella, attorney
for the Crow Creek tribe.

More than 120 recreational areas along the river are to be transferred
to the state and both lawsuits claim the federal laws do not properly
protect the cultural items on the sites.

The lands in question were held by the Oglala Sioux Tribe by aboriginal
title, the complaint states. And the treaty of 1851 verifies that ownership
with the Great Sioux Nation.

When the Pick-Sloan Act was passed in 1944 to establish the series
of hydro-electric dams along the Missouri River, none of the Oglala
Sioux Tribe�s fifth-amendment-protected property interest in the lands
were ever acquired by the Corps for the main stem dams, the court documents
state.

The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe�s lawsuit is joined or supported by the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

Crow Creek Lawsuit Freezes Missouri River land transfer

RAPID CITY, S.D. � A federal judge in Washington, D. C. is blocking
a controversial land transfer along the Missouri River that has pitted
Sioux tribes against each other and raised bitter memories of the loss
of ancestral land.

The arguments in this case may affect land transfers across the country.
In winning a temporary stay, the Crow Creek Sioux argued that it is
impossible to both transfer the land and implement the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The tribe is also asking
for a permanent injunction to stop the land transfer.

"This is the beginning of the end for Indian people. Things told to
us by our elders are coming true," said Roxanne Sazue, chairwoman of
the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. "We have to stand up now and file lawsuits.
The Federal government has a plan for us, but we know what we want.
It�s time to take action, not talk."

On the other hand, two Sioux tribes and the state of South Dakota
stand to receive 150,000 acres from the federal government. A federal
law would give the land now controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers
to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and a
state Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat Restoration project.

The transfer was scheduled for Dec. 21 when U.S. District Judge Paul
Friedman of the Washington, D.C., District imposed a stay. Judge Friedman
accepted the Crow Creek Sioux argument that the Corps could not turn
over land to the state and at the same time enforce federal historic
preservation laws.

Sazue argued that the much revised transfer law was altered without
tribal consultation. Also, many tribes claimed it violated their treaties.
The land transfer has been in the works for nearly five years. The original
bill was rewritten and then repealed after tribes involved were surprised
with the changed language.

"The tactic used with the mitigation bill is to divide and conquer.
The government called us the river tribes and ignored those treaty tribes
not on the river. We are all in this together. If (Crow Creek) loses,
we all lose," she told a meeting of the Black Hills Sioux Treaty Council.

"This is our land, our ancestors fought and died for it. It is scary
at this time in our history; we are not afraid to go to court because
all we get from the federal government and Congress is that they tell
us what we need."

At the root of the opposition is the fact that the state will receive
the bulk of the 150,000 acres of land. The Treaty Council claims that
it is in violation of the nation�s constitution to transfer that land
to the state. In another sticking point, cultural artifacts and objects
are found in numerous places on either side of the river. The fear is
that the state will not be held to a high enough standard to protect
those cultural objects.

"You can take a boat down river to Chamberlain and see the bones of
our ancestors coming out of the banks. They are trying to tell us something,"
Sazue said.

"But now everything is stopped."

The land transfer involves unused shoreline above a flood plain that
was created in the 1950�s Pick-Sloan project that dammed the Missouri
River for hydroelectric power with a series of earthen dams. The lakes
created by the dams displaced entire towns and many tribal members lost
their homes and allotted lands in the bargain.

The state has claimed from the beginning of the process five years
ago that the transfer of land to the state will mean better management
of the land. Sen. Tom Daschle, D � S.D. referred to the previous management
by the Corps of Engineers as neglectful. Gov. Bill Janklow called the
transfer as the best deal in 50 years for the state. Daschle and Janklow
worked for three years to get the bill through Congress, only to see
it repealed and rewritten.

Tribal members were paid a small amount for the land lost, but in
the Pick Sloan Act a provision provided the land to be transferred back
to the tribes if it was no longer useful.

The Cheyenne River Sioux and the Lower Brule Sioux approved the Daschle-
Janklow bill but other Sioux Treaty Tribes opposed it. The bill passed
as a rider to a water development appropriations in 1999 and was signed
by then President Bill Clinton.

The official title of the legislation is the Cheyenne River Sioux
Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and State of South Dakota Terrestrial
Wildlife Habitat Restoration Law.

But changes in the bill upset at least one of the supporting tribes,
the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Tribal Chairman Gregg Bourland, who
had been instrumental in providing input in the original bill, now opposed
it.

The bill was later repealed. When it was passed again it provided
for the land transfer to occur Dec. 21.

Sazue said that the Mitigation act, as it is referred to by its opponents,
was another way to divide the tribes and the tribal leadership. "It�s
like the trust reform business. Then next they will want to quantify
the water. It�s an ideal way to conquer us through the land. We have
to stop the lip service as tribal leaders and members and put a plan
together. We are always reacting to something in Indian country," she
said.

The tribe�s attorney Peter Capossela said in a letter to Sazue that
the tribe�s position was to challenge both the land transfer and the
lease of the land. It was impossible, the letter stated,

The Justice Department represented the Corps and stated that the tribe
challenged the leases and not the land transfer. The government also
stated that sufficient government to government consultations had been
held. It mailed a letter that asked for one on the day of the hearing.

Sazue told the judge that the government should not have scheduled
a consultation on the day of the hearing. Again, the judge agreed.

While the Corps and government sift through the implications of the
ruling, there may be a hold on transfers across the country, government
officials said. Crow Creek officials disagree. They claim this lawsuit
involves a specific statute.

Additional briefs must be submitted to the judge by Feb. 8 for a continuance
of the stay judgment. The legal maneuvering will ultimately lead to
a trial that will determine if the land transfer Act is constitutionally
vague and ambiguous, as the Crow Creek tribe claims.

The only tribe that has expressed public support for the Crow Creek
lawsuit is Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Meanwhile the Oglala Sioux Tribe has filed a separate lawsuit to block
the transfer to the Cheyenne River and Lower Brule tribes. Mario Gonzalez,
Oglala Sioux tribal attorney, said the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District
Court in Washington, D.C., in hopes of preventing the change in ownership
of 91,178 acres of land within 64 riverside recreation areas.

"We seek to enjoin the land transfers not only to the state of South
Dakota but also the Cheyenne River and Lower Brule Sioux tribes," Gonzalez
said.

John Yellow Bird Steele, president of the Oglala Tribe, said the tribe
is waiting for an environmental-impact statement from the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers. Tribal officials apparently hope the report will
bolster their lawsuit.

However, a corps official has said the environmental-impact statement
will not stop the project, which was approved last January by Congress.

Gonzalez said the Oglala lawsuit alleges that the lands along the
Missouri River contain more than 1,100 archaeological sites. The human
remains and cultural items on those sites belong to the Oglala Tribe
under NAGPRA, he said.

Under an 1868 treaty, the Oglala own all cultural sites on the western
banks of the Missouri River, Gonzalez said. The repatriation law also
gave the Oglala Sioux Tribe ownership of human remains and cultural
items on the eastern banks of the river, he said.

The tribe argues in its lawsuit that boundaries of the Great Sioux
Reservation, as set by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, begin on the
eastern banks of the river and were not diminished by an 1889 law that
created six smaller Sioux reservations in the state.

Gonzalez said the tribe is seeking an immediate court order to prevent
the corps from transferring Missouri River lands to the state and Cheyenne
River and Lower Brule tribes.

All this comes as Gale Norton, secretary of Interior, has announced
a reorganization of the BIA to form a new trust management office. Tribal
officials across the country argue that they were not properly consulted
in the plan.

The Great Plains tribes, of which Crow Creek is a member, oppose the
new reorganization. Assistant Secretary for Indian affairs Neal McCaleb
will hold a "consultation meeting" in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Jan.
10. Tribal leaders plan to meet the day before to strategize and plan
their opposition to the reorganization.

Encouraging news from Washington

Today, December 11, in Washington, DC, Federal District Court, Judge
Paul Friedman heard oral arguments in Crow Creek Tribe's lawsuit against
the Corps of Engineers. The tribe seeks to stop transfer to the State
of South Dakota of Missouri River shore land which was reserved for
the Great Sioux Nation under the Fort Laramie Treaty.

The transfer is mandated under what has been popularly referred to
as "the Mitigation Act" (Title VI of the Water Resources Development
Act of 1999, as amended in 2000). The tribe alleges that Title VI is
unconstitutional, as well as confused and self-contradictory, and that
it violates several other federal laws. The Corps of Engineers contends
that the suit is without merit and should be dismissed.

It ain't over, not by any means. However, what happened today looks
positive for the tribe. After hearing oral arguments from both sides,
the judge stated:

He's disinclined to agree with the government that the tribe's lawsuit
can be dismissed.

There may, indeed, be constitutional problems with Title VI.

He wants more briefing on the subject, including material on the
final environmental impact statement about the land transfer. [More
briefs would mean an additional hearing in about 60-90 days. The problem
is that the Corps and the State have planned to effect the transfer
NEXT WEEK!]

He asked the Corps and the Tribe to negotiate a postponement of
the transfer to allow time for the additional briefing.

He said that if there was not a negotiated postponement, he could
declare one anyway, though he'd rather have it be a matter of mutual
agreement.

There you have it, friends. With the outlook positive, Tribal Chairwoman
Roxanne Sazue and tribal elders must be feeling very encouraged as they
head in their van back to Fort Thompson.

Postponing the transfer is fine with the tribe, of course. If the
government refuses to negotiate a postponement, the tribe's attorney,
Peter Capossela, will file a motion this Friday for preliminary injunction
against the transfer, asking for a hearing by December 21.

South Dakota Peace & Justice Center strongly affirms the stand of
the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in this legal action.

Land transfer draws protest

RAPID CITY � About a hundred mostly American Indian protesters walked
out of a public meeting here Thursday, angrily denouncing the federal
government's plan to transfer land along the Missouri River to the state
of South Dakota.

"This is a farce," Harvey White Woman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe said.
"This meeting is not in the best interests of our people."

White Woman and many other protesters � some carrying signs, others
carrying flags � left midway through a public hearing at Rushmore Plaza
Holiday Inn.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was gathering public comments on
the transfer of 91,178 acres of federal land along the banks of the
Missouri River to the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Gov. Bill Janklow
worked together to craft legislation that in January will give the state
control of most of the banks of the Missouri River, including more than
3,000 miles of shoreline on four huge reservoirs.

Janklow and Daschle argued that the state could manage the land better
than the Corps of Engineers.

Many Indians say the transfer violates treaties.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 gave Sioux tribes all of western South
Dakota.

Indian protesters said Congress illegally reneged on the treaty in
1889, and they called the transfer of river land another illegal land
grab.

"The intent is still there, and that is to take treaty lands," said
Jay Taken Alive, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council
who spoke at a Thursday news conference. "This is a monumental ... event
for us because it does involve water rights, and it involves treaty
land."

He said voters on the Standing Rock reservation defeated the idea
by a vote of 1,435-160 in 1999.

Taken Alive and other protesters attended a rally before the meeting
at nearby Roosevelt Park.

Robert Quiver, a member of the Lakota Student Alliance who camped
in protest on La Framboise Island at Pierre, urged tribal officials
to boycott Thursday night's hearing. Instead, Quiver encouraged them
to ask for immediate repeal of the law and to demand a full investigation
by the Senate.

Protesters also marched to the meeting behind a color guard. Inside,
they lined up around the outside of the meeting room, holding poster-board
signs, which they gently rattled in support of speakers.

During the hearing, White Woman called for an investigation of Daschle.
Many protesters singled out Daschle for criticism, including rancher
Marvin Kammerer, a longtime social activist and supporter of Indian
land claims.

Kammerer said he had supported Daschle for Senate. "Never again,"
Kammerer said.

The meeting in Rapid City was the eighth and final hearing to collect
public comments on a "draft environmental-impact statement" on the land
transfer.

The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, requires environmental-impact
statements on almost all federal projects, even though Corps officials
say this one is mostly moot. Corps of Engineers Project Manager Mike
George of Omaha, Neb., said Thursday the environmental-impact statement
will not stop the project, which Congress already has approved.

"It can't force any action," George said, and he acknowledged that
Indians were frustrated by that. There also were protests at meetings
on the Standing Rock and Crow Creek reservations, George said, but Thursday's
meeting was the angriest. "This is the most frustration I've seen expressed."

Oglala Sioux Tribe Vice President Theresa Two Bulls said her tribe
was especially frustrated by the Corps' reneging on an earlier pledge
to at least study treaty issues. "The Corps failed to do the analysis,"
Two Bulls said.

George agreed there was an earlier promise, but the draft environmental
statement now says treaties "are not within the purview" of its analysis.

Most protesters said the Corps of Engineers should oppose the transfer
in spite of Congress.

"It's, like, what part of 'no' don't you understand?" Roxanne Sazue,
chairwoman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, said at the rally. Later,
she repeated her comments in the hearing. "We do not want the land transferred."

Indians also object on cultural grounds. When the Army Corps began
building dams on the Missouri River more than 50 years ago, much of
the reservation land along the river was flooded, forcing people to
relocate.

Burial grounds were left behind, Sazue said, and human remains and
funerary objects frequently are unearthed along the river banks. "There
are federal laws to protect these sacred cultural resources," she said
in a prepared statement. "The Corps of Engineers is preparing to transfer
the land as quickly as possible and ignoring the need to continue to
protect the remains of our ancestors."

The Crow Creek tribe has filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming
that the transfer violates environmental and historic-preservation laws
as well as the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

Attorney Peter Capossela said the court has yet to hear the case.
"It's real difficult to go into their (federal) courts and object to
their actions," he said.

A handful of non-Indians joined the protests.

Brian Brademeyer of the Black Hills Group of the Sierra Club said
his group had proposed three alternatives to the transfer � including
a smaller transfer, a transfer within federal agencies and a transfer
of western shoreline to the Sioux Nation Treaty Council.

The Corps of Engineers called those proposals "unreasonable" and did
not analyze them.

The South Dakota Peace & Justice Center, a social-activist group based
in Watertown, also opposes the transfer. Jeanne Koster, director of
the center, said the transfer would limit tribal access to Missouri
River water to the duration of the Mni Wiconi pipeline project. Koster
said tribes should have access to water forever.

In fact, the draft environmental-impact statement itself also lists
"significant adverse impacts" the land transfer could have for Indians.
George said Indian people who use Corps of Engineers recreation areas
for free, sometimes for religious ceremonies, will have to pay a state
entrance fees after the transfer.

The meeting started out politely, but after two hours, protesters
were shouting at George and an environmental consultant who helped him
run the meeting.

Standing Buffalo, a young man from Pine Ridge, warned that the tribe
would call for a "public citizen's arrest" of anyone who signed the
transfer.

Kammerer and Brademeyer joined protesters who left the meeting.

Most protesters were from three tribes: the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe will
get land under the transfer, but Thursday's hearing addressed only the
land transfer to South Dakota.

For other Indians, a basic issue is at stake. "In our minds, in our
hearts, the treaties are in full force," Taken Alive said.

Lakota Student Alliance Response to: Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (Eis) of South Dakota Title Vi Land Transfer - US Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE) - Omaha District July 2001. Public Comment
Held August 23, 2001 Rapid City SD.

The purpose and need for the Draft EIS is totally illogical, therefore
unethical, due to the nature of the routing of one of America's most
historic legislative/administrative thefts of Indian lands ever encountered.
This travesty today is know as the Title VI Land Transfer in South Dakota.

The core of this theft stems from the illegitimate authorization of
Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction in the 1940s (Pick-Sloan Missouri
River Basin Act 1944). Lakota peoples were coerced into relocating to
make way for Dam construction, effectively taking the jurisdiction and
control of natural resources away from the Great Sioux Nation. The Army
Corps and state of SD beleived the removal of Lakota from their burial
sites and hunting/fishing territories was conducted in humane ways,
thereby justifying their greed for the Power generated by the use of
4 major dams in South Dakota.

The USACE transfer of Treaty lands [not public lands] to a state where
racial intolerance exists does not make for good constitutional policy.
The State of SD, Senator Tom Daschle, and USACE's disregard of our opposition
toward this land theft for the last several years is evidence of this
prejudice and inequality. The US Civil Rights Commission report in April
2000 concluded that racial disparities exist in SD, further validates
our allegation.

The Water Resources Development Act of 1999 (WRDA PL 106-53, Amend
106-541) was signed without the required consent of 3/4 of the adult
male population, as stipulated in Article 12 of the Constitutionally
supreme Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868).

Additionally, (according to USACE estimates), the looted title to
the Missouri River will transfer about 91,178 acres of land. We will
assume the Lakota Water Rights will be "waiting" to be transferred though
the EIS ignores this important facet of the scheduled activity. If native
Indigenous water rights are co-opted by this transfer, then over 31.4
million acre feet of water is estimated to be transferred also. The
transfer scheduled to be completed "no later than" January 1, 2002.

With So much controversy surrounding the transfer, and with so much
inconsistency on the entire "scoping" process, it would be unfair to
conclude that a comprehensive EIS has been conducted. It would be unfair
to the Great Sioux Nation to Comment as it would be viewed as complicity
with the land transfer. And furthermore, to comment on these very numerous
inconsistencies would only serve to undermine the legitimate supremacy
of constitutional treaties.

A. Therefore, we urge all tribal officials and parties involved to
boycott or retract any and all comments already submitted on the Scoping
Process, including but not limited to the current Draft EIS.

B. Instead, we encourage all tribal leaders and officials to request
the immediate Repeal of PL 106-53, amended PL 106-541 Title VI Land
Transfer. Additionally, since the negative significant impacts of this
land transfer will deal a severe blow toward the unity of the Great

Sioux Nation, we will encourage tribes to demand a full Senate Investigative
hearing based upon the Executive Orders, Environmental Statutes, and
Federal laws cited in p. 299 of the current EIS. (The USACE claims it
is using the legislation to measure the impacts against the states proposed
development of Treaty Lands.)

PIERRE -- A group of American Indians protesting the transfer of control
of land along the Missouri River has left LaFramboise Island and moved
north to the Standing Rock Reservation.

The perpetual fire started on the island more than a year ago is out,
and two tipis occupied by fire tenders are gone.

The tipis and the fire, called sacred by those who had occupied the
island since March 22, 1999, were moved to a high bluff overlooking
the Missouri near Wakpala.

A worker at the nearby Wakpala Head Start confirmed that the camp
had been in place for about two weeks. Members of the camp declined
to comment when reached by telephone Wednesday.

The move came as a surprise to residents of Pierre and Fort Pierre,
towns on the east and west side of the river. Less than a month ago,
dozens of people went to the camp for the anniversary of its establishment."

The sacred fire that was lit more than a year ago at the Indian protest
encampment on La Framboise Island has temporarily left the site, campers
said Wednesday.

The two large tepees that have served as a constant reminder of the
camp's existence and as a symbol of Native American heritage are also
gone but will be back, campers said.

According to camper LeGrand Wells, 24, the fire was transported to
the Standing Rock reservation to be used to light a council fire. Less
than a month ago, he said a goal had been established to use the sacred
fire to light seven council fires across the state in a show of unity.

The fire on La Framboise Island, the First Fire of the Oceti Sakowin
or Seven Councils Fire, was lit on March 22, 1999, when the camp was
established in protest of the Missouri River Mitigation Act. The mitigation
act, passed by Congress, will exchange land along the river from U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers' control to the state and two participating
tribes.

Wells, who stayed throughout the winter to keep the fire burning,
and Dan Merrival, one of the original camp protesters, said the missing
fire and tepees are not indicators that protesters will break camp anytime
soon. They said a group of "elders" recently expressed interest in seeing
the camp stay on the island for at least another year.

Though the mitigation act is slowly moving forward, campers said Wednesday
that the protest could continue until land they believe was unlawfully
taken from Indian tribes in the state more than 100 years ago is returned.

New or repaired tepees are expected to return to the campsite on the
island by this weekend along with the sacred fire. When the fire returns,
two of the seven council fires representing the different tribes in
the state will have been lit.

Since the time the sacred fire was first lit, campers have said that
the protest was peaceful and local law enforcement representatives have
agreed. However, Wednesday night Wells was involved in an incident at
the nearby American Legion Cabin that was less than peaceful.

According to Pierre Police reports, officers were called to respond
to a fight in the parking lot of the American Legion at about 8:45 p.m.
A window was broken during the melee.

Wells was later located at Sadie's Pub where he was arrested on charges
of intentional damage, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. At least
two others were involved in the incident, a police spokesman said.

Sen. Tom Daschle is attacking problems with the Missouri
River on two fronts.

Friday, March 24,
2000
Dana Hess

Late Thursday he introduced legislation to ensure the river�s future.
He also recently met with a corps official to appeal for a quick solution
to current problems.

Daschle, D-S.D., introduced legislation that would create the Missouri
River Restoration Trust Fund.

At the same time he has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
to alleviate some of the frustrations that landowners and city governments
have been experiencing as they try to work with the corps on the mitigation
project that will buy or flood proof homes in Fort Pierre and southeast
Pierre.

The $200 million trust fund in Daschle�s legislation would be fully
capitalized in 11 years. After that point it would generate $12 million
per year to be used on river improvements.

�The Missouri River is central to the economic well-being of not only
riverside communities, but our entire state,� Daschle said. �We have
to reverse the detrimental change the river has undergone in the past
20 years, and we need to do all we can to improve opportunities for
businesses, communities, boaters and tourism all along the river. The
Missouri River Trust Fund would support those efforts and help protect
this important resource.�

A 25-member board would oversee how the money in the trust fund would
be spent. South Dakota�s governor would appoint 15 of the members with
the other 10 made up of representatives from each of South Dakota�s
nine Indian tribes and one from the Three Affiliated tribes of North
Dakota.

According to information from Daschle�s office, the establishment
of the trust fund would require development of a plan to reduce the
amount of sediment flowing into the Missouri River, better protect historic
sites, protect fish and wildlife and improve recreation on the river.

In a conference call with reporters this morning, Daschle explained
that the funds would be appropriated at about $10 million per year for
10 years.

�This is a significant contribution made by our country,� Daschle
said, �and I think it�s important that we recognize that the alternative
will be even more expensive.�

Daschle said the money from the trust fund, $12 million per year,
could �put a real dent� in the problems on the river.

�We�ve got to deal with siltation,� Daschle said. �We�ve got to deal
with the extraordinary problems we�re now having all up and down the
river with regard to the build-up of siltation.�

While progress has been made on the introduction of Daschle�s legislation,
the Senate Minority Leader has expressed frustration with the progress
being made on the mitigation project in Pierre and Fort Pierre.

�I�m disappointed that we haven�t seen faster action,� Daschle said.

Homeowners have been frustrated by the slow process and elected officials
have been vexed by corps requirements that don�t seem to be in the best
interests of their cities.

To speed along the corps, Daschle said he met with the new head of
the district corps office in Omaha, Neb., Col. Mark Tillotson. His message
to the colonel was that the corps had to do a better job of working
with the people in Pierre and Fort Pierre.

�We had a very blunt conversation,� Daschle said. �I think, in the
end, it was a good conversation. I think they understand where the delegation
is and how strongly we feel about resolving these matters. They also
understand the need for urgency, the need for action now.�

Pierre residents who want to learn more about the project can attend
a public meeting sponsored by Pierre city government. The meeting will
take place at 7 p.m. Monday at the Ramkota RiverCentre.

Indian Protest Camp Marks One Year

From: "hansenhouse"
AP 3/24/2000

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) _ American Indian protesters at LaFramboise Island say
they will maintain their camp despite a failed attempt to stop the transfer
of Missouri River land to the state and two tribes.

Those who started the camp last March 22 said century-old treaty rights
barred the impending transfer of river shoreline. They kept a spiritual fire
burning throughout the year as a symbol of their protest.

Congress passed a law which allowed the swap in 1998. In February, South
Dakota legislators authorized the Game, Fish and Parks Department to manage
the state's share of the newly acquired riverside recreation areas.

Crews of prison inmates are expected to move into some of those sites,
perhaps yet this month, to begin cleaning and improving campgrounds and
roads in anticipation of a summer season of heavy visitor traffic.

"It's the first really visible signs people will see that the transfer is
moving ahead," says Game, Fish and Parks Secretary John Cooper.

LeGrand Wells, 23, who is among those who tended the fire through the
winter, sees little chance that the deal will stop. Still, he says, he will
continue his task.

The protest is less about the specifics of a single act of Congress than
about the symbolism of the flame, said Wells.

"I can see that what this fire symbolizes is important," he said. "It's
why people on all the different reservations in the state are making moves to
have a bigger voice in their government, whether it's by taking over
buildings, negotiating or praying.

"Here, for example. Maybe the land transfer didn't stop. Even so, people
in South Dakota had to think about what the treaties said. Maybe we made one
small step toward more understanding of what was and what is now."

When the federal government built dams on the river during the 1940s,
1950s and 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers took private, state and tribal land
along the river, some of which it didn't need for dams and reservoirs.

U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle and Gov. Bill Janklow started in 1995 on a deal that
would turn the unused land back to the state and the four riverside tribes.
Two tribes chose to be part of the deal. Two stayed out.

After Congress passed the law, a group of Indian protesters who said they
hoped to get a reconsideration of that action, set up the LaFramboise Camp.
They argued that the 1868 treaty remained in effect and the state had no
right to any of the land.

Daschle and Janklow staff members who worked on the land deal said acts of
Congress and decisions in federal courts in the past century have negated
the effects of the old treaty. Congress re-affirmed its decision on the land
transfer in the summer of 1999.

This year, the state Legislature approved, and Janklow signed a bill r
allowing the state to accept the land, about 91,000 acres.

Full transfer of title is expected to take several years. In the meantime,
the new law allows the state to lease and improve the land and recreation
areas currently owned by the corps.

The state will first begin making improvements at 23 corps recreation
sites on the east side of the river.

"If the weather cooperates, we may be getting started with improvements on
those areas by the end of the month, certainly by early April," Cooper said
Tuesday. "There are trees to be cut, cleaning, painting, plumbing and
electrical work, things like that."

The corps will continue to own and manage the sites until a lease is
completed in October, Cooper said.

He said the state intends to be se nsitive to the Indian issues as it
moves into a position of control.

"All up and down the length of the river, we know there are burial sites,
historic sites that need to be protected," Cooper said.

The corps currently is assessing such areas, so that any proposed
development can occur only after cultural or historic sites have been
identified and preserved, he said.

[Note: With 50% of the US in drought conditions and forecasted to be worsening this year, news reports on the Mitigation Act fail to mention this land deal also granted the State of SD water rights in the Black Hills. The Black Hills belong to the entire Nationof the Oceti Oyatawin not just the two who brokered this agreement, and therefore per the Treaty of 1868 is not legal...IMO]

CHAMBERLAIN -- The transfer of 133,000 acres of federal land along the Missouri River to the state and two Indian tribes could turn into a financial boondoggle if changes aren't made, a tribal leader said
Monday. But a state wildlife official said the land exchange will benefit both
the tribes and the state over time.

Gregg Bourland, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers lands to be transferred to South Dakota and the
Cheyenne River and Lower Brule Sioux tribes hold the potential to become
devastating financial burdens.

Archaeological sites, pollution problems and continuing erosion that sometimes damages private land are likely to cost the state and tribes millions of dollars in the future, Bourland said. He doubts that trust funds being established for the tribes and the state as part of the land transfer developed by U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Gov. Bill Janklow will be enough to cover the costs.

"Your great-great-grandchildren will encounter this. Who's going to pay
the price?" he said during a speech to the South Dakota Chapter of The
Wildlife Society. "The costs of preserving the cultural sites along the river
alone will suck up the whole trust fund.

"It's going to be a big fight. And the amount of money to be spent will
be phenomenal."

But John Cooper, secretary of the state Game, Fish and Parks Department,
said trust funds established by Congress as part of the transfer will
provide millions of dollars a year for management of the property. And
an additional trust fund being proposed by Daschle would help handle silt
and erosion and preserve sacred sites, Cooper said.

"We've talked to the corps of engineers, looked at their expenses, and
we haven't seen them spending anywhere near the kind of money that Chairman
Bourland is talking about," Cooper said after Bourland's speech. "And
even after the transfer, the corps will still be responsible for any damage
that results from the management of the reservoir system."

Bourland's comments, which clearly took Cooper and other state officials
by surprise, are the latest hitch in a transfer process that has been
anything but smooth. The Missouri River lands transfer was approved by Congress two years ago after more than three years of discussions, negotiations and public hearings. It transfers land taken by the federal government for the
Missouri River dams to the two tribes and to the state.

As partial compensation for lands swallowed by the reservoirs, the act
also sets up trust funds that eventually will total $108 million for the
state, $42 million for Cheyenne River and about $15 million for Lower Brule.
Interest from those funds will help the state and tribes manage recreation
on the land and develop wildlife habitat.

The Crow Creek and Standing Rock tribes refused to take part in the
transfer. Like Lower Brule, Cheyenne River signed on. But Bourland said
the transfer will never make up for what the tribe lost to massive Lake
Oahe, the largest of the state's four Missouri River reservoirs.

"We lost 104,000 acres of beautiful river bottom land, so they could
build Lake Oahe," Bourland said. "Not to mention the wildlife resources lost,
our people were forced up out of the river bottom onto the harsh plains."

Bourland worries that the underpayment will continue under the transfer.
He said some of the lands have been polluted through erosion, siltation and
runoff from agriculture practices in the watershed. He wants an environmental impact statement on cleanup costs before the land is transferred.

"We do not want to accept damaged goods. It's just that simple," he
said.

Bourland also wants a series of public meetings to discuss those and
other issues -- including the contention of some Indian tribes that they,
rather than the state, should get surplus corps land on the west shore of the
Missouri.

Cooper said at least two federal court decisions confirmed that the
corps of engineers had properly taken tribal land for the reservoirs, and had
compensated the tribes for it. Like the tribes, the state deserves some of the corps property as partial compensation for thousands of acres of flooded land, Cooper said.

"This is just another step in trying to do a better job of managing the
resources of the Missouri River," he said.

Bill Janklow, Republican Governor of SD, and US Senate Minority Leader
Tom Daschle are probably watching the Pine Ridge conflict between
"grassroots" people and the Oglala Sioux Tribe council.

Meanwhile they are serious about transferring federal lands into the
hands of SD. A legal precedent. The transfer is to occur in 2000.

We ask to continue your letters to Daschle and his "financial donors"
asking to urge a petition for a repeal of Title VI of 1999 Water
Resource Development Act. Its not too late to promote or foster good
relations between white South Dakota and Lakota people.

PIERRE, S.D. -- It was a gloriously warm day when 300 people gathered
at the state Capitol here on Native American Day this fall to celebrate the
late Gov. George S. Mickelson's dream of reconciliation between Indians
and whites, who in a sense have never really stopped fighting in South
Dakota since Gen. George A. Custer made his last stand at Little
Bighorn.

There was a children's choir, bagpipes, flutists and impassioned
speeches condemning the kind of mistrust and racism long abhorred by
Mickelson, who in 1990 angered many white people in the state by making
Native American Day a legal holiday.

Conspicuously absent from the ceremony was its invited Grand Marshal, Gov. William J. Janklow, a Republican called "Wild Bill Janklow, the
Indian Fighter" by many Indians. Janklow was in Sioux Falls, fulfilling
what he said were prior commitments.

Also missing was a group of Indians who since March have occupied a
small island in the middle of the Missouri River -- within sight of the
Capitol -- to protest what they call a "land grab" of more than 200
miles of river shoreline, engineered by Janklow and Senate Minority Leader
Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D. The protesters say it violates the 1851 and
1868 Fort Laramie treaties.

Although the treaties gave the west bank of the river -- plus the
western half of South Dakota and large parts of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana
and North Dakota -- to the Sioux Nation, subsequent congressional acts
and U.S. Supreme Court rulings have effectively abrogated the pacts. In
August, President Clinton signed a bill transferring the river property from the
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, which acquired it in the 1940s for federal
flood control projects, to the state.

Indians across the state are furious at Daschle for first quietly
inserting the land transfer into the voluminous 1998 omnibus spending
bill and then, after the House voted to repeal the deal, submitting a renamed
version as part of a water development bill that ultimately passed.

The Corps of Engineers had not been able to adequately maintain boat
ramps and other recreational facilities along the west bank of the
river, Janklow said. Transferring the land to the state, in addition to the
Cheyenne River and Lower Brule tribes' agreement to the deal, will allow
the state to develop more recreational facilities while protecting
portions of the shoreline from erosion and development, he said.

"The river is our No.1 resource, and this is a way to protect it,"
Janklow said.

So as they have been for generations, the Sioux tribes and the state
are once again in conflict over who controls the land they share, an ongoing
dispute usually centered on the mineral-rich Black Hills, 200 miles west
of here, which also were taken from the Indians.

But the tensions go far deeper than land disputes. They reflect a
vast cultural divide and a gulf of suspicion and mistrust between Indians and
whites in a state that historically was one of the bloodiest battlegrounds
between the races during the great westward expansion.

The smoldering anger of the young "fire-keepers" who are tending a
sacramental fire at the protest encampment on La Framboise Island here
-- a fire they vow will not be extinguished until the Sioux get back the
Missouri River shoreline -- seems at times to be directed less at the
land transfer than at Janklow and the kind of anti-Indian sentiment they say
he represents.

"I see him as the modern-day Custer, a racist through and through,"
said Richard Charigreaux, an Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation, as
he sat with other fire-keepers in front of a tepee in which the spiritual
fire burned. "In our religion, we were taught to pray for our enemies so
they can see, but I don't think he'll ever see."

The camp protesters -- who vary daily from about a dozen to 200 --
recalled Janklow's role as a zealous prosecutor of members of the
militant American Indian Movement during the bloody civil wars of the early 1970s
on the Pine Ridge Reservation, including defendants in the 1974 Custer
County Court House riots, in which Indians firebombed buildings after
the arrest of an Indian woman whose son had been killed by a white man.

Janklow said he became a villain to militant Indians after he
prosecuted prominent American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks and others in the riot case. "I made the point that we had to stop this in South Dakota,
and I did," he said.

"As much as these folks hate me, I never anticipated" the uproar over the land arrangement, Janklow said. "I thought this would be the hottest
deal they could ever get."

Citing Supreme Court decisions holding that the power to make a
treaty is the power to break a treaty, Janklow said, there's no question the
Indians were treated badly when the Fort Laramie treaties were broken and the Sioux Nation's vast lands were reduced to a few scattered and desolate
reservations.

"If I was an Indian, I could understand the shaft, because this land
was stolen in spite of the treaty. But we didn't do it, the federal
government did it, and now it's leaving us to try to deal with it," the governor
added.

Charmaine White-Face, spokesman for the Black Hills Nation Treaty
Council, said the Sioux will fight to repeal the transfer because "federal
law can't abrogate treaties. ... We didn't make an agreement with Bill
Janklow, we made an agreement with the U.S. government."

I am sending email (cc) for Faith Spotted Eagle, who is working
frantically to buy precious time. The Corps of Engineers wants to promptly raise the water level of Ft. Randall dam. 25-30 graves were discovered very recently
when the water was dropped and the Yankton tribes needs time to ceremonially
retrieve and rebury those ancestral remains. Corps is worred about loss of
electricity and other Y2K possibilities (terrorism). While the tribe makes its
preparations, they need all the help they can get in stalling the Corps
from submerging the ancestors again. Media contacts, public pressure, etc.

Gratitude for all your fine work and available leadership and resources...
Rosalie Little Thunder rosalie@enetis.net

The First Fire of the Oceti Sakowin still burns in a tepee at the Indian
protest camp on La Framboise Island. The Omaha District of the United
States Army Corps of Engineers has given permission for the fire to burn
for at least another month.

Protesters have been camped on the island since last March in protest of
the Mitigation Act which will transfer control of about 160,000 acres of
land along the Missouri River from the corps to South Dakota and two
Indian tribes. Protesters claim the transfer violates treaties made
between the federal government and Indian tribes in the latter half of
the 19th century.

The corps has issued letters of permission to camp in an area normally
off limits to overnight recreation each month since the protest began. A
spokesperson for the Omaha District said permission would likely
continue to be granted to the protesters as long as they abide by the
terms of the arrangement which include environmentally conscious practices.

Times are hard for Indian people in this day and age, we're
being robbed of the most important aspects of who we are
as a people, our way of life and our land.

Pilferers come in many disguises, ranging from business suits and brief
cases to bells, bones, dyed hair and moccasins, but their intent is the
same - to steal away as much as possible from the Indian people under
the guise of saviors pretending what they do is best for the Indian.

The Lakota people have battled to maintain what little we have left.
Although our ancestors fought hard and died brave to keep our way of
life alive, the government continued to create circumstances that meant
death, one way or another. Our ancestors saw this and some leaders
embraced the new world order quickly, while others fought until they
could fight no more and with great sadness they reluctantly shook the
hand that choked them. Either way, the leaders did what they did so
their people could live. Murder and starvation were the government's
tools of war against the Indian people. Indian men, women and children
suffered the worst of any 'ethnic cleansing' the world has ever seen -
less than fifty years after Wounded Knee, Jewish people were subjected
to a doctrine of inhumanity similar to that we had endured for nearly
five hundred years. We are both holocaust survivors. The US Government
would have succeeded in wiping the Indians off the face of the earth,
had they not realized that the world would have viewed them as bigots, lifting the veil
they hide everything under - that cloth they call the flag of democracy.

In 1851, the government made a treaty and set aside land creating the
Great Sioux Nation reservation. Its boundaries extended through most of
Nebraska, nearly half of Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, and almost
all of South Dakota. This was the first and only agreement the
government ever made that was equitable toward the Great Sioux
Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Nation. But that soon changed as the lust for land
and greed stepped in again. After losing the war that closed the Bozeman
Trail, with its army defeated by the allied forces of the Lakota,
Cheyenne and Arapaho, the government realized what a great mistake they
had made with that treaty and made another, the treaty of 1868. The US
lost the war but won the peace, which depleted the Great Sioux Nation's
land base by more than half.

But the really brazen show of greed came
when gold was found in the Sacred Black Hills and choice land was seen
to exist all along the Missouri River; this was when the government
began its 'literary' campaign to take as much land away as 'legally' possible by creating one
Act after another through Congress, which is still practiced today.

Take the 1889 Act that many say illegally cleared the slate concerning
the 1851 and 1868 treaty lands. This Act diminished the Great Sioux
Reservation and created today's Sioux reservations. According to
Attorney Mario Gonzalez, the US Government did not obtain 3/4 of the
adult male Indians' signatures required to make the 1889 Act legal and
binding. But the 1889 Act is just another example of how the government
minces its words to satisfy its needs. It shows how the government
manipulates people to accept a condition without seeking recourse.

Every
Act passed by Congress concerning the Great Sioux Nation has been
challenged, but each time the challenge is made, another Act takes its
place. Woe and behold the Mitigation Bill of the century that has
held more titles than a used car dealership. After much diversion of
ducking, weaving,
slipping and bobbing for a place to come alive, the bill attached itself
- like the leech it is - to a "for sure it's gonna pass" bill, attached
as a rider to the Water Resources Development Act, or House Bill 2131.

Now it has a name it wants to live with; "The 1999 Omnibus
Appropriations Act." Why does it like this name? Because it's a name
that covers up the truth. At least they could have been honest and named
it "The Cheat the Indians Out of Their Land Again Act of 1999." Before
riding in on the Water Act, it was known as "The Cheyenne River Sioux,
Lower Brule Sioux and State of South Dakota Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat
Restoration Act." And before that, it was known as "The Cheyenne River,
Lower Brule Sioux and State of South Dakota Mitigation Act of 1997,"
which was originally written by Democratic Senator Tom Daschle, the wolf
in sheep's clothing who fleeced his flock of Lakota/Dakota/Nakota
voters, and Republican Governor Bill Janklow, a reincarnated Indian
fighter without
the flowing locks or fringed buckskin coat...."What Senator Daschle has
accomplished is a miracle", Janklow cooed. "I'd have no integrity at all
if I didn't say this was his handiwork."

High praise from a man who
served as a member of the 'Rosebud Sioux tribe's legal services program'
until he was disbarred by Judge Mario Gonzalez in 1974 for "assault with
intent to commit rape, and carnal knowledge of a female under 16." Some
seven years earlier, on January 14, 1967, a 15 year old school girl,
Jancita Eagle Deer, had reported to her school principal that she had
been raped and accused William Janklow. Following examinations and
investigations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs filed a report recommending
Janklow's prosecution. ......snipped

Serving as a member of the Sicangu Lakota 'Rosebud Sioux tribe's legal
services program', Janklow practiced law on the Rosebud reservation
until he was disbarred by Judge Mario Gonzalez in 1974 for "assault with
intent to commit rape, and carnal knowledge of a female under 16." Some
seven years earlier, on January 14, 1967, a 15 year old school girl,
Jancita Eagle Deer, had reported to her school principal that she had
been raped and accused her legal guardian, non-Indian lawyer William
Janklow. Following examinations and investigations, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs filed a report recommending Janklow's prosecution. Jancita's
stepmother, Delphine Eagle Deer, was Leonard Crow Dog's sister, and
Delphine vowed to prove that Janklow was guilty of raping her daughter.
However, Delphine Eagle Deer was found beaten to death in a field before
she had fulfilled her promise.
When, as a 22 year old woman, Jancita
repeated her accusations in tribal court, Janklow failed to answer his summons
and federal and state authorities were less than cooperative.

Other
allegations were made against Janklow during this period; some tribal
members alleged to have seen him attempting to shoot dogs out of a car
window while driving around the reservation at high speeds in his
underwear! It could be said that his star was in the ascendancy with the
state of South Dakota during the same period of time. Janklow became an
Assistant Prosecutor in the State's Attorney General's office and was
assigned to prosecuting cases arising from the Custer court house
incident in 1973. Janklow prosecuted Sarah Bad Heart Bull, mother of
Wesley Bad Heart Bull, following the disorder in Custer. Sarah Bad Heart
Bull was denied access to a meeting being held by members of the
American Indian Movement and representatives from the state's judiciary
to discuss the sentence imposed upon her son's killer, Darold 'Mad Dog'
Schmidt.

A non-Indian, Schmidt was charged with involuntary manslaughter
for stabbing Wesley Bad Heart Bull in the heart area. At Sarah Bad Heart Bull's
request, AIM were seeking a stronger sentence for her son's murder than
second-degree manslaughter. Ultimately, Wesley Bad Heart Bull's killer
received two months probation and, prosecuted by Janklow, Sarah Bad
Heart Bull was sentenced to three to five years for assaulting a police
officer during the unrest....snipped